[Quote No.6681] Need Area: Friends > General "...society’s myths do provide role models for the society at that time ...mythology has a function [providing an understanding, expectation, inspiration and plan for life]...it takes care of this creature man, too early born. It carries us from infancy to maturity, from maturity to our second infancy, and then out the dark door." - Joseph Campbell(1904 – 1987), American professor, writer, and orator best known for his work in the fields of comparative mythology and comparative religion. His work is vast, covering many aspects of the human experience. Campbell's seminal work, ‘The Hero with a Thousand Faces’ (1949), discusses what Campbell called the monomyth — the cycle of the journey of the hero — a term that he borrowed directly from Joyce's ‘Finnegans Wake’. His work, ‘The Masks of God’, written between 1962 and 1968, in four-volumes covers mythology from around the world, from ancient to modern. Where ‘The Hero with a Thousand Faces’ focused on the commonality of mythology (the ‘elementary ideas’), ‘The Masks of God’ books focus upon historical and cultural variations the monomyth takes on (the ‘folk ideas’). In other words, where ‘The Hero with a Thousand Faces’ draws perhaps more from psychology, ‘The Masks of God’ books draw more from anthropology and history. The four volumes of ‘The Masks of God’ are as follows: ‘Primitive Mythology’, ‘Oriental Mythology’, ‘Occidental Mythology’, and ‘Creative Mythology’. At the time of his death, Campbell was in the midst of working upon a large-format, lavishly illustrated series entitled ‘Historical Atlas of World Mythology’. This series was to build on Campbell’s idea, first presented in ‘The Hero with a Thousand Faces’, that myth evolves over time through four stages: -1- ‘The Way of the Animal Powers’—the myths of Paleolithic hunter-gatherers which focus on shamanism and animal totems; -2- ‘The Way of the Seeded Earth’—the myths of Neolithic, agrarian cultures which focus upon a mother goddess and associated fertility rites; -3- ‘The Way of the Celestial Lights’—the myths of Bronze Age city-states with pantheons of gods ruling from the heavens, led by a masculine god-king, and; -4- ‘The Way of Man’—religion and philosophy as it developed after the Axial Age (c. 6th century BC), in which the mythic imagery of previous eras was made consciously metaphorical, reinterpreted as referring to psycho-spiritual, not literal-historical, matters. This transition is evident in the East in Buddhism, Vedanta, and philosophical Taoism; and in the West in the Mystery Cults, Platonism, Christianity and Gnosticism. Other well-known works of his are ‘Myths to Live By’ (1972), ‘Pathways to Bliss: Mythology and Personal Transformation’ (2004) and ‘A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living’ (1991). Quote from his book, ‘Pathways to Bliss’.Author's Info on Wikipedia - Author on ebay - Author on Amazon - More Quotes by this AuthorStart Searching Amazon for GiftsSend as Free eCard with optional Google Image